In preparation for his role, Christian Bale took race driving lessons at the Bondurant High Performance Driving School. As it happened, the founder of the school had been a friend of Ken Miles. So in addition to the driving, Bale also got to hear stories of the 1960s racing scene. Bale's instructor and the film's stunt coordinator, Robert Nagle later stated; "he's hands down the best actor I've ever trained."
Matt Damon said that the number one reason he wanted to do the movie was to work with Christian Bale.
In order to recreate the Le Mans circuit as it existed in the 1960s the scenes taking place on the race track had to be shot in five different locations. This proved a challenge in terms of continuity as not only the cars had to be correctly placed for each shot but the weather had to be consistent as well. VFX was critical in fixing a variety of continuity issues, some of which were as simple as adjusting clocks to the right time.
According to Matt Damon, Christian Bale had to lose seventy pounds before filming began. Bale had previously gained a lot of weight for his role in Vice (2018) and had about seven months to lose it all and then some to play the lean race car driver, Ken Miles. Damon inquired of Bale how he managed to lose all the weight, to which Bale replied that he simply didn't eat. Damon said he was impressed by Bale's monk-like discipline.
Marketed as "Ford v Ferrari" in North America. In most other countries around the world it is titled "Le Mans 66".